Home Again

                                  

 It wasn't that long ago that I sat at my computer to write a very sappy blog post about my baby girl going off to college. It was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to write -- not because I couldn't find the right words, but because I could not see very well with the tears pouring down my face and the blubber blocking up my sinuses. 

I get like that sometimes.

At the time, I poured my heart out about how proud I was, but also how sad that my baby girl was leaving me to go off and become her own person, to become even more independent than she already was and pretty much always has been. I marveled at how quickly the time had passed from that moment her first mother placed her in my empty arms to then. How hard it was to let her go.

It was so full of emotions that even she was moved to a tear. (Just one. My girl does not cry like her mama.)

But almost just as quickly, four years flew by and my baby girl is home -- sort of.

Just a few short weeks ago, she donned a purple gown and mortar board, moved her tassel from one side to the other, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, with a Bachelor's degree in Communications. She was on the Dean's List all four years (or the President's List) and was the editor of her school newspaper, The Current Sauce.  Best of all, in four years I never got a call from campus security or a local sheriff's deputy and we made it through with no major traumas, dramas, illnesses or catastrophes. 

Whew! 

I may have been up in the rafters on graduation day, but I could still see her proud smile as she walked across the stage to receive her diploma. I did not cheer. I did not hoot or holler. I did not even caw. I just watched and cried and recorded it so I could watch it again... and again. And so could she. 

And she did not have to see me to know that I was bursting with pride and crying -- again.

Shortly after the ceremony (and the monsoon that hit during it), we posed for a slew of family photos to mark the occasion. We then drove back to her dorm to pack it up and move her out one last time. I got to play car Tetris once more (I am the Master!), stowing her belongings in my car, hers and her boyfriend's. Before we hit the road, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at her favorite spot in Natty -- a little gas station cafe called The French Market. Then we all settled in for the very long drive home.

But this time, she didn't bring all her stuff back to my house to sort through. No, this time it all went to her boyfriend's place just up the street! (Score one for Mom!) Her now tidy bedroom is still tidy! The only thing she gave me was the cap and gown to store safely in one of her many boxes and trunks of keepsakes. 

And I was fine with all of it. After four years, I'm just happy to have her less than four hours away. She is literally one mile away now, in a tidy little trailer she is working hard to decorate and keep clean. We've gone there to see where she put all her stuff and to visit with our grand cat, Flea, and dog, Buddy. She's come home to raid the fridge and the pantry and to swim. It's nice.

So now she begins her post-graduate degree in adulting. She's looking for a job (she's a damn good writer), filling out applications, taking care of their pets, figuring out how to pay the bills, and calling for advice here and there. 

These four years have taught both of us a lot about independence. She has been on her own and survived. And so did I.

So, now that she is home again, I have not become a helicopter mom, opting to let her do it her way. I'm here if she needs me, and if I do happen to spot an interesting job opening on Twitter or Facebook, I do send it her way. The rest is up to her.

A lot of my co-workers and Facebook pals are now where I was four years ago, crying over their soon to be empty nests and lamenting how hard it will be to drive their child miles away and drop them in their new temporary homes. I feel for them. My heart aches for them. But at least now I can tell, them -- they do come home again. Well, sort of. She may not be back in her childhood bedroom, which she never cleaned, but at least she's in the same zip code. 

Quarantine Week 2: The Nest is Full Again

Whaddaya mean you're coming home three months early??? 

Regular readers of this little blog (both of you) may recall that, last August, I wrote a very tearful (well, I cried) post about our baby girl leaving the nest and going off to college.

Although my heart was having a hard time letting her go, my brain recognized that it was her time to spread her wings and fly. Yes, I did cry. A lot. But then the Coach and I had a cute and funny photo shoot showing off our new empty nest.

Don't worry, everyone said. She will be back. I knew she would, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. Or that she would come back with so much STUFF!

The spread of the Corona Virus has forced colleges to shut down across the country. Classes now are being held online and students are no longer required (or even allowed) to live on campus. Lora didn't hesitate; she booked it home as soon as she could following the announcement. But she only brought a few things with her. Yesterday, we had to go back to move her our of her dorm room four hours away.

It was quite a difference from Move-In Day.

For one, it wasn't 1,000 degrees outside. It was a nice, cool morning with clouds.

Also, there weren't 1,000 people there doing the same thing as us and trying to find the best parking space.  In August, there were student volunteers directing traffic, welcoming new students and befuddled parents, pointing the way to go, telling us what to do. Yesterday, there were about five cars in the parking lot and no one there directing traffic. Inside, there was one young lady, who obviously had nowhere to go during her spring break, waiting to take the keys when we were done.

In August, I was sad but also thrilled to help my daughter set up her new living space. I tried not to be  one of those overbearing moms, offering my help and advice only when asked and allowing her to do her own thing.  Yesterday, I was only sad at the thought that she was losing such a large chunk of her freshman year of college. And she pretty much let me take charge of the packing and the cleaning.

In August, we spent hours unloading Coach's minivan and hauling everything into her room. Yesterday, it took us about 90 minutes to put it all back in. (And I am still the reigning Tetris champion of the universe!)

Now it's all piled up in the spare bedroom downstairs, awaiting her attention. Meanwhile, I'm wondering where in the heck we're going to put it all.

But, as I did in August, I'm letting her do her own thing. Gotta give 'em their space, right?

Eighteen

A few weeks before the end of 2018, I got a message from my daughter's doctor.

Figuring it was just a reminder that she had another birthday coming up, and thus another annual checkup, I didn't think much of it --- until I opened it and got a shock.

It was a notice telling me that, as of Jan. 25, 2019, I would no longer have access to my daughter's medical records. That's because, on Jan. 26, she would turn 18.

18.

Eighteen. 

Legal. A legal adult. One who didn't need her mama looking at her medical records anymore, apparently.

Wow.

Yes, my cute, sweet baby girl I prayed for and cried for and died a little for is all grown up. She is putting her finishing touches on her final year of high school.  She is writing essays and filling out college applications, mulling her options and figuring out how much scholarship money she can get and how much more green she will need. 

She pretty much has decided where she wants to go (and it's not too far away!), but she's keeping options open. She wants to study music, but wants to go into the business part of it (even though you all know she has a beautiful singing voice she chooses to keep to herself). 

She is a busy, active teen with many friends, an after school job taking care of a little boy for a local couple. 

She has no residual effects from her scoliosis surgery -- except that she can't pick her socks up off the floor. She still has an aversion to putting her laundry away too, but at least she does it herself. 

She is strong, independent, stubborn, wickedly funny and willing to fight for what she believes in. She already registered to vote, too.

How could I not be proud?

I have no doubts that she will go out into the world and find her way. I don't think I  have to worry about her making poor choices. She seems to have chosen her friends wisely and has never been much of a "follower." 

Yeah.

But I'm a mom. And I'm doing my best to try to slow down time right now, to not think about that moment in a few months when she will back out of my driveway with a car full of stuff to move to a new place. Without me. 

I'm not ready.

From the moment Gail put her into my arms I have been determined to savor every second I had with this child. I held her when I could (even when the mother-in-law said I was spoiling her). I didn't want to miss a thing. I let her sleep in my bed. I cuddled, rocked, coddled, held hands, hugged, kissed, sang, played, dressed up, read stories every second I could and brought her late to daycare just about every day (sorry Sue!). I Spent every extra minute I could with her..

And it still won't be enough. 

Graduation Day

Just about six months ago, I got a chance to go home.

No, not to my hometown of Houma -- although, I go there all the time. Thanks to an opportunity, a former co-worker at the former daily paper, a nice recommendation from her and a spiffed up resume, I got to go home to Loyola University New Orleans.

I spent seven of the best years of my life at this beautiful, cozy, Uptown campus, beginning in 1980, when I joined a bunch of crazy women from Florida and St. Louis, Missouri, on the fourth floor at Buddig Hall.

I spent the last few months living in the Cabra Hall Dormitory on the Broadway campus, just steps from where I am now working as a part time/temporary writing assistant in the Office of Public Affairs. It's a nice gig with some nice people in a nice, very quiet office in the ancient Greenville Hall, which once was part of the St. Mary's Dominican campus. I have my own little cubicle I like to call, "The Grotto."

I won't get into all the reasons why it took me so long to complete my Loyola education. Let's just blame it on New Orleans, Mardi Gras, an off-campus apartment, my lack of maturity, indecision, (the now defunct) Phi Phi Phi sorority, the Oil Bust of the 80s and lots and lots of beer. Mostly the beer.

But I did eventually finish. I did get a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in Religion and another in Secondary Education. But I didn't graduate.

I didn't get to put on the pretty crimson cap and gown and traipse across a stage to get my diploma (or at least the cover). Instead, I left the Times-Picayune sports department on my lunch hour and went to Loyola to pay my final bill. The nice lady in the finance department handed me a receipt and told me to go to the Registrar's Office. There, another nice lady handed me my diploma.

Just like that.

No cap. No gown. No "Pomp and Circumstance." No applause. Not even a cake.

I had my reasons. My family was just too quirky at the time, and didn't always play nice. My high school graduation so many years earlier had been a blended family fiasco. While I sat on the Terrebonne High School football field sweating in the May heat, it broke my heart to see one part of my clan seated to my left and my dad seated to my right. They couldn't get together for just one night. for me. I didn't even want to attempt to let them try again.

Plus, I was, quite frankly, a little embarrassed that it had taken me so long to finish. I dropped a lot of classes. I skipped a lot more. My transcripts are about 10 pages long. By the time I finished my last class in the summer of 1987, I was 25 years old and already working at The Times-Picayune  sports department. I even spent part of my final semester living in the dorm at Cabra Hall with eight or so 19- and 20-year-olds. It was a little unsettling.  And even though I was the first of our family to get a college degree, I was a joke. I still get teased about it -- or I did until my stepson beat my record.

So now I'm working in the Public Affairs Office with this woman, this Cracker Jack woman, named Angela. And she is the person who puts together Loyola's graduation ceremony. I mean she really puts it together. Then she directs it.

For the last several months I have heard this woman plan the annual Commencement ceremony down to the most minute detail -- from who is carrying what to who is saying what to who is ushering whom to where. It truly has been amazing to listen to her on the phone. The other day the office table was covered with "Just in Case" stuff -- markers, pens, pencils, Post-its, a first aid kit. You name it, she has thought of it.

I don't know if the 1987 Commencement Ceremony was so meticulously planned. I going to guess it was not because Angela wasn't in charge then. If she had been, it would have been for sure.  And it makes me rather sad that I'll never know. She makes me wish I had walked that stage.

When I became a step mom to Daniel and Courtney, one of the things I wanted to make sure of was that none of their events would be spoiled by their parents because of me. And their parents agreed.  Cheryl and I both are kids of divorce. We each grew up with our own stories. And it's part of the reason we all made it a priority to play nice. I've always told the kids, if they ever want Mom and Dad on the front row and me on the second, just say the word. They never have.

And we don't elbow each other out of the way. We save each other seats. That's what families are supposed to do. Especially on days like this.

Y'all KNOW I would have wrtten "LOLO" on my cap, right?

Lagniappe: Here's one for all my fellow New Orleans area graduates (whether on stage or not). It's a N'awlins tradition! And it makes us all cry.   ---------->   Graduation Day